…probably not the biggest shocker there seeing as I’ve not posted in just over two years, but I thought I should pop up a little virtual sign in case anyone thought I’d vanished into the Internet abyss. I’ve actually been super busy with all my styling and writing work, as well as renovating the house and taking on a troubled little rescue dog, meaning there are precious few hours left in the day to pop out a tweet let alone craft an actual blog post. I do hope to be back here again someday, sooner or later, but I’d rather wait until I have the time to work on a proper reboot and go at it afresh than simply pop up random posts every six months or so.

I do, however, keep a News page as part of my main portfolio website, where I share, um, news (about what I’ve been working on, rather than anything important like world events) so do head over there for more pretty pictures. And I’m still on social media if you’d like to come hang out with me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Until we meet again…

Happy New Year, one and all – I hope the start of 2015 sees you refreshed and raring to go, and not too sick of kale smoothies just yet. I FINALLY managed to finish off decorating my bedroom before the big day, so I’ll post up pics of that next week, but for now I’m just stopping in with a little new-goodies update. Like most of the population, I’m currently on a bit of a health kick to get over the excesses of Christmas, and as such – along with the obligatory kale smoothies – I’m trying to generally eat a healthier diet, cutting out processed foods and (as much as possible) sugar. I like to think of it as the 1940’s Housewife Diet and have actually been enjoying blitzing up my own soups, sauces and smoothies, rather than eating all the E-numbers and gunk that are in the packets and tins. So when Tesco Direct got in touch to see if I’d like to try out a few pieces from their recently launched Autumn/Winter 2014 ranges, it was a great opportunity to add to my ever-growing kitchen kit!

I’ve wanted a cow butter dish for years, and now we’re only using real butter rather than marg, it’s great to be able to keep this little fella out on the side, ensuring my butter’s always spreadable. And I’m hoping to try making a paleo inside-out loaf in this gorgeous ceramic loaf pan soon, though I’m equally tempted to just fill it with succulents for a pretty display. The ceramic bottle has been used to store my homemade almond milk when not in use to display blooms (cue further smug face), and we’ve also been making our own pesto from (what else?) kale, which keeps brilliantly in this little relish jar. I’m planning to make my own mayo too once our previous shop-bought number has run out, so my ceramic mayonnaise jar is currently waiting patiently for a fill-up.

It’s possibly a little premature to be gathering up kitchen bits before we’ve even started work on our planned kitchen makeover, but with all the decs down, the house feels somewhat bare and empty (cue laughter from boyfriend at the many trinkets and baubles still cluttering every surface) and there is something so delightful about simple white ceramics. A visual palette-cleanser, if you will. Anyway, fear not, I won’t start boring you with my Kale Tales and it’ll be back to interiors-chat next week, though hopefully I’ll be able to share more shots of these new homeware additions in my new kitchen space before too long!

And we’re nearly there! One of the perils/benefits of being self-employed is you get to, to an extent, choose your own hours, but sadly for me I still seem to have deadlines coming out of my ears and am only just unshackling from my desk now for a few days. So there won’t be a sprawling two-week break for me, and the Office Party is going to mainly consist of me opening a glass of Rioja and polishing off a Shepherd’s Pie at teatime. Still, all of these things are made all the more lovely by having all my favourite Christmas decs set up around me (and with a roaring fire on, of course!) I love that I get to Christmas-decorate vicariously when I work on festive shoots earlier in the year and it’s always fun honing down a theme, but when it comes to my own home, personally I love nothing more than putting tasteful co-ordinating colour schemes aside, and simply showering the house with all my favourite festive trinkets. Classy it may not be, but so many of my little treasures hold special memories for me – especially the baubles from my own childhood Christmas Past – and as I (inevitably) add new ones to the mix each year, it’s always a real pleasure to get them hung up (however many shoot-trees I may have decorated a few months back!)

So up top is a snapshot of my festive living room (‘scuse the dodgy lighting), complete with our little wonky potted tree, which we’ve managed to keep alive in the garden for a WHOLE YEAR (cue proud face), and these are a few of my new additions for 2014. The cute little wooden bells and delicate ceramic star above are both from Toast, won in a competition a few months back (I *might* have been so excited about it all that these have actually been out on display since October)

I always like to support the local designers in my adopted-hometown of Walthamstow through, um, shopping for pretty things for myself, so at a recent E17 Designer’s Christmas fair I couldn’t resist topping up my stocks with this pretty glass snowflake from Steve of Kiln Arts, plus this fab screenprinted ‘bauble’ from illustrator Eileen Kai Hing Kwan (do check out her drawings – they’re amazing!)

And also, a big thank-you to one of my favourite websites, REfound Objects, for Christmas-gifting me this gorgeous teeny-tiny bottle! I’ve popped in a couple of equally tiny dried poppy heads from the garden in it. Pretty safe to say this WON’T be relocated to the loft on Jan 5th.

As our tree lives in a pot in the garden for 11 1/2 months of the year, I strategically planted it in a plastic one rather than terracotta, for ease of dragging it through the house, so it’s not the prettiest of bases. Next year I’m hoping to make a proper tree skirt for it, but in haste for 2014 I’ve just wrapped the base in some giftwrap samples I had from Caroline Gardner. These beautiful crackers, also from my Toast win, are too lovely to pop so are surrounding its little bottom, instead.

As my tree is a little on the teeny side, I usually pick up some twigs in the run-up to Christmas, to display in vases and hang my mini-baubles off – these were procured from Epping Forest. And general festive trinkets gradually clutter up the sides, too, like this amazing pate tin I picked up in Finland last year when I was shooting my book (in August!), repurposed into a festive tealight holder.

I’ve also got several fab Christmas display pieces by flocking master Johnny Egg – I love the way their colours pop against my dark walls.

I’ve always had a thing about festive snowglobes, so this little cutie from gorgeous, eclectic interiors website Lime Lace is now pride of place on my mantle.

And finally, it’s not really Christmas decor, but I wanted to give a shout-out to my stunning plate from Sasha Tugolukova. I had planned to actually use it as a plate, but as soon as I saw it I decided it was waaaay too gorgeous for that, so I think it’s going to live here on the mantlepiece indefinitely now. Part of her Mask collection, its intricate design is comprised of pencil illustrations brought together to form this complex, multi-faceted design. I can’t stop staring at it.

So there we have it. I think it’s finally time for me to stick the Out of Office on and get on with it all, but first, a big thanks to everyone who’s read my ramblings this year and supported my debut book, Home for Now. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I’ll see you in 2015!

{Images: all Joanna Thornhill. Possibly a bit late for this year, but if you like my DIY festive cones in the picture above, the instructions on how to make them, which I wrote for Wayfair’s blog, are here}

Are you feeling festive yet? I must confess that, as I have to deal with Christmas decorating for a large chunk of my Summer due to all those long-lead print deadlines, it generally takes me a while to summon up the willpower to actually decorate at home for the holiday season. However, a couple of weeks back, website-crush The Chromologist asked me to share a few of my own personal festive traditions, and since then it’s kinda got me back in the mood. I’ve always enjoyed getting my Christmas craft on, and last year, as we finally had our very own front door (and had painted it in the rather dreamy Summer Medley 1 by Dulux), I decided to have a go at making a door wreath for the first time. Turns out it’s pretty easy, and though it’s not exactly what you’d call “posh”, I rather like its wonky charms. And the best bit? It cost me precisely zero pennies to produce, thanks to a bit of thrifty foraging. I like the idea of this becoming a little annual tradition, so this year I thought I’d share the process for anyone out there with barren doors looking for a little wreath-shaped inspiration. Here’s how I made mine:

You Will Need:

– Some foliage – ivy is a tough old boot and can usually be found pretty much anywhere, so I tend to use this as my base material. I used a few different varieties mixed together, for variation

– Any other evergreen foliage lurking in your garden/the park

– Additional goodies to add interest to your wreath – I picked some dried hydrangeas, lavender, thyme, rosemary and a few other miscellaneous dried flowers from the garden, adding in some acorns, pine cones and cinnamon sticks, then got over-excited and spray-painted a few leaves and twigs, too

– Some thin wire – enough to form into around a 30cm circular shape (my wire was pretty thin, so I doubled it up)

– String or twine, and scissors

– Christmas music on the radio, a cuppa and a chocolate brownie (optional)

1. Gather all your goodies together on a tabletop, and don’t be too stingy: I thought I’d massively over-propped for my wreath but ended up using pretty much every large scrap of the above in its construction.

2. Form your wire circle – I just went freehand with this, creating a loose circular shape around the size of a large dinner plate. Twist the wire together at the end to close – if your wire is quite thin, like mine was, you might prefer to double it up for extra strength.

3. Start to add a single layer of ivy all around your wire. Tie it into place at one end with a bit of string, then gently weave it through the wire the whole way round, tying again at the end. I used a few shorter pieces to make up this initial circle. It actually looks quite sweet just as it is at this point, but if you’re anything like me, by this stage you’ll have got the taste for it and be frantically darting around your house looking for more stuff you can shove in it.

4. Build it up – continue bulking your base out by weaving the ivy in and out. Try to ensure it’s nicely tangled in amongst itself for added strength. Work to one side, ensuring the ‘front’ looks lovely and luscious and the back, which will go against your door, is relatively flat. Keep holding it back against a clear wall to check your handiwork, until you’re happy with its final shape.

5. The best – and most addictive – bit: pimping it up! Slowly work your way round, adding in your various accoutrements, either poking or tying them in. Once you’re happy with your arrangement and everything is secured down, tie a length of twine around the top to attach to your door – mine handily hangs off my little pine cone door knocker, but if you don’t have a ready-made hanging spot, you could run a length of twine or ribbon all the way up and over to the inside of your door if there’s something to secure it on there, or alternatively good ol’ 3M sell removable hooks suitable for holding your wreath to your door, if you don’t want to cause any damage.

And there you have it! One rather charming little wreath, if I do say so myself, made all the more special by the fact it’s constructed from garden cuttings. In my experience, this should stay looking pretty good for at least a couple of weeks, so now’s the perfect time to make it before the big day.

In other crafting news, I recently made these cute Christmas tree cones, below, for a blog post commissioned by Wayfair UK – I’d had the idea in my head since last year, so this was the perfect excuse to try them out. They were super-easy to make and look great lining a mantlepiece or shelving unit – click here for the full how-to.

I’ll be back again pre-Crimbo to share a look at the rest of my festive decor, then I should FINALLY be ready to do another room reveal on my just-about-finished bedroom! To whet your appetite, here’s a sneak-peek of it on my Instagram feed.

High time I popped back over now my Christmas shoot bonanza has (I think!) drawn to a close (July-Sep are usually completely swamped with festive image production, leaving me very confused at this time of year as in my head it feels like approximately February). Between that and focusing attention on enjoying (and maintaining) the garden throughout the last of the warm weather, we’ve been neglecting the interior of our house for quite some time now.

Now, like many interiors folk on the Interweb, I must confess to finding myself presenting a somewhat curated version of my home – I definitely think it’s good to share a few comedy look-how-disgusting-my-living-room-is-right-now shots when things get REALLY bad (usually directly after a busy shoot which involved crafting) and I also think it can be a bit soulless to only show perfectly styled vignettes without a bit of real life sneaking in around the edges sometimes, but on the whole I do tend to avoid snapping the rooms I’m not so keen on (i.e. half the house still).

However, as the nights are drawing in and hanging out in the garden becomes distinctly less appealing, my nesting instinct has been reawakened and I’m determined to finally finish off the half-done bathroom, study and bedroom this side of Christmas, so that in January we can fully focus on the biggie: our proposed kitchen/dining room side return extension! When we moved into this house, I had anticipated it being something of a stop-gap before moving on to something bigger and better, and was planning on doing a Home-for-Now-style makeover on the two rooms – paint the dining room, change the handles on the kitchen cupboards, remove all the top cupboard doors to give a more open look, make a curtain to cover the washing machine – you get the gist. However, as property prices in our area have gone up by over a third since we bought in 2012 (!) it soon became apparent we weren’t going to be heading further up that ladder anytime soon. And the current kitchen just doesn’t work for us. At all. No, not these gorgeous ones above (they were just to lure you in) – this is mine, plus the dining room:

You might not think it looks too bad in these pics (and I appreciate things could be much worse and I am incredibly lucky to have a functioning kitchen in a home of my own at all) but trust me, in Real Life, it leaves a lot to be desired. Apart from the lengthy list of things wrong with it (rising damp, leaking door, bodge-job window, every appliance not working properly, stupidly configured cupboards, a crumbly bit of wall currently held together with some gaffa tape and a paper plate, etc etc) it’s just too goddam small for our needs (we’re big fans of cooking – and eating – and unsurprisingly I have a rather hefty collection of food tins, kilner jars and general kitchenalia) and we’ve already given over half the dining room to additional kitchen supplies. I’m totally an advocate of making do where you can, but the time has come to move onwards and outwards in this space. So I very much hope to be back with you in the new year with posts showing building progress (scheduled to start early Spring depending on the weather).

We’re currently waiting for proper plans to be finalised before we can go and actually start designing the space properly, so above is a mini inspiration board of vaguely what I want to achieve. I’m keeping my current eBay score dining table and chairs, and the 1950’s kitchen unit in the corner (to be given some sort of makeover) but pretty much everything else is out. The plan is to make the space semi-open plan, turning the dining room window into a second open walkway into the new kitchen space, install some grey units (going for a mix of solid, glass-fronted and simple shelving), remove the plaster from the chimneybreast in the dining room and open it up, add some industrial-style lighting, then decorate throughout to tie the two rooms together. Cannot. Wait!

As we’re still not at unit-choosing stage, my initial thoughts have turned to floor tiles and fabrics. I recently fell in love with these gorgeous encaustic-style tiles from Original Style, called – appropriately – Old London, and am using these as my initial starting point for the space. The encaustic-style tiles I installed in my bathroom are still pretty much my favourite thing in the house, and I find that by adding pattern to floors whilst keeping the walls neutral, I’m free to fill up shelving with a whole range of trinkets and accessories without fear of a clash.

I’m also keen to introduce some patterned window blinds and curtains (to go across the new door) – it might seem like I’m getting somewhat ahead of myself here, but I think it’s important to hone in on any main patterns you want to introduce to a space first, then decide on any plain elements to tie it all together. In a rather timely manner, The Natural Curtain Company got in touch to ask me to check out their made to measure curtains range (I can actually sew myself but as it took me almost two years to finish off my bedroom blinds I might outsource this time!) I was aware that they stock a range of stylish, simple linens which I’m quite tempted by, but was also pleasantly surprised to see them stocking fabrics from Emily Burningham, Ian Mankin and – one of my favourite design labels – St Jude’s, too. Looking at everything together, I’m tempted to include the two designs shown in my moodboard (perhaps one in ready-made curtains plus a blind for the door/window, then the second design by-the-metre to create a curtain over the washing machine?)

Anyway, expect to hear from me again A LOT about all of this – and if I’ve not FINALLY posted up finished pics of the upstairs rooms by New Year’s Eve, come and give me a poke, OK?!

{Images: Top image – the kitchen of photographer Malcolm Menzies, as seen at Light Locations. Second image – the kitchen of photographer Line Kays, as seen at What Kenny Hearts. Third image – the kitchen of Alison Allen, as seen at Design*Sponge. Tiled flooring lifestyle shot via Original Style. All other images taken by me. This post was produced in collaboration with The Natural Curtain Company, but everything shown/mentioned and all my general witterings were entirely my choice}

…Just popping in quickly (I’ve been busy with back-to-back festive shoots these past couple of months!) as I wanted to share this rather exciting collection with you. Joss and Main, the American flash-sales site, set up shop on our fair isle several months back now (with Germany and France to follow any day now), sharing their buys from throughout the globe and organising them as curated three-day themed sales (often with discounted prices). The team invited me to guest-curate my own sale and I’m happy to report it’s now live! The sale is themed around the idea of The Stylish Rental and includes clever ideas for both decorative and practical homewares, with the temporary home in mind (yes, I may have been a teensy bit inspired by my book, Home for Now). I pulled together a number of product and theme ideas and presented them to the team of in-house buyers, who then sourced a fantastically eclectic collection of over 90 products to fit the brief. I have mentally purchased most of them myself already, but in the interest of giving an edited selection, here are my favourite ten from the sale below:

To snap up any of these goodies for yourself, head over to the homepage and sign up using this link (disclaimer: if you use this actual link, I get a few credits in the bank, allowing me to buy some stuff of my own, so if you’re signing up anyway it’d be marvellous if you could use it!) The sale ends Thursday lunchtime (25th Sep) – now go forth and shop! And do let me know what you buy…

Oh and psst – there’s also an interview with me on their blog, Plume. Think of it as some bonus content.

{Images: All product images taken from Joss & Main. Image used in The Stylish Rental banner taken from my book, Home for Now (Cico Books 2014)

It’s a sad truth that (in my limited experience), when doing up an old house, pretty much all the budget seems to go on the boring stuff (grout, MDF, ummm windows that don’t allow rain to drip onto your computer when it’s stormy) and the pot is fairly empty when it comes to getting anything pretty. Now, I’m rather lucky in that I do manage to get the odd freebie here and there due to my line of work, be it props leftover from a shoot or goodie bag gifts from a press show, so I can’t exactly complain about a lack of trinkets and baubles (I can actually hear the boyf laughing in my head at the mere thought). But point being, despite the above, it’s somewhat rare for me to go into a shop and just buy stuff for my house which I don’t really need, just cos I kinda like it. With over half the space still to renovate and a LOT more money to be chucked at it, frankly it feels somewhat frivolous. So when Dwell offered me some gift vouchers recently to try out some of their products at home, all entirely my choice, it was a lovely excuse to do just that.

I’ve featured Dwell products in editorial photoshoots on various occasions and they’re often amongst the top of my recommendations for friends who are setting up a new home and are after design-led pieces on a low budget. The chairs in the picture up top are a perfect case in point – contemporary with a mid-century lilt, they’re the perfect balance of giving a nod to classic Eames styling, yet different enough not to be considered a replica. Were I in need of chairs, these would be pretty high on the wish list, but right now I’m not, so here’s what I spent my vouchers on instead:

Top: Cake stand with dome – I’ve always wanted one of these (and I’m sure it’ll come in handy as a shoot prop on occasion, too) so now seemed like the perfect time to buy. As I don’t exactly need encouragement to buy cake, however, I’m thinking that once the bedroom’s decorated I’ll move it up there to display something-or-other instead. For now, it’s popped on top of my tall dining room cabinet (excuse the actual cabinet, he’s waiting for a makeover) and is housing – what else? – a, um, small vintage ceramic gorilla.

Bottom: I’m a big neon fan (more so since living near the amazing God’s Own Junkyard) but, as much as one day I’d love to commission my own bespoke neon artwork, I think it’s fair to say it won’t be happening anytime soon. So this fab fairground-style arrow light (which sadly seems to have gone out of stock, but here’s a link to the general lighting section in case it comes back) was a very happy compromise. It’s currently sitting on a little side table in the corner of my study. I’d been looking for a light to go in that corner for a while and this one has the added bonus of kicking out a fair bit of heat, too (well that’s not such a bonus right now in the height of Summer, but in a few months I’m sure I’ll be cosying up round this like it’s a log fire in an alpine cabin). I was planning to hang it on the wall but I’ve since noticed a large crack appearing and am now too scared to, so let’s just pretend I intended it to stay here all along.

Top: Magazine bag – this is also in the study (which I will do a proper reveal of soon once I’ve fixed up a blind and finishing-touched it). I’m actually using it to store all the lookbooks, press releases and general post I get sent in, as a sort of holding pen before I then look through them properly and file them away, in an attempt to improve upon my current filing system for such items, which consists of piling them on any available surface until I get overrun and have to stop work for several hours to have a cull.

Bottom: Giant bottle vase – this lovely creature is actually doing a rather special job in the bedroom, hiding a rather unfortunate missing bit of fireplace, which I had to stuff with bubblewrap and cover with a black cloth to minimise the uglyness/draughts. This pretty much hides the whole thing, unless you look *really* hard, and also gives me an excuse to store a Miss Havisham collection of dried (AKA dead) flowers once more, after having to throw loads away in the house move (due to them disintegrating on contact with humans/air).

So there we have it! Some lovely reinvigorated corners. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to pull back and show you the rest of the rooms too, sigh…

{Images: top two images courtesy of Dwell. All other images taken by me.}

Stylist’s Own

Stylist's Own is a sneaky peek into the the inspirations, work and insider secrets of London-based freelance Interiors Stylist and Writer, Joanna Thornhill. When I'm not busying myself with shooting, writing features, schmoozing around at press shows and design events or propping for jobs, I can often be found scouring the internet for all its yummy, inspirational goodness, ready to report back here. Along with admiring the work of others, I also share images from my own adventures in the world of DIY, 'craft hacking' and renovating my ramshackle two-bed Victorian terrace in Walthamstow, north-east London.